Hire or buy a Temporary Building?

Very often when a business wants to use a temporary building they begin the process by considering hire only. After-all, if you’re thinking ‘temporary’, it’s likely you’re thinking ‘hire’. Often though once businesses start to talk to HTS INDUSTRIAL, they realise the better and most cost-effective option is to buy. Not only does it end up making better business sense, but it also retains flexibility and options for finances and the future. So, if you’re considering a Temporary Building which option is going to be the best for your business and why?

Hire a temporary building

Hiring is a pretty concrete option if you have a defined period of time where you require additional on-site space. Often this is associated with refurbishment, maintenance or re-build projects. There is a clear-cut need to replace the space temporarily while the existing facility is being worked on. Good examples of this are retailers making improvements to supermarkets, warehouses undergoing a refurb or in the case of fire damage or similar, sometimes even a re-build.

That said though, it’s not unusual for a business to hire a temporary building for a set period but during that time realise not just the benefits but another future ongoing use for the building. Multi-sited businesses sometimes find this and once the building has served its purpose on one site, it can be dismantled and relocated to serve a different purpose on another site.

Buy a temporary building

Although many people initially talk to us about hiring a temporary building, once they being to understand the financial and overall benefits of buying outright they can quickly change their minds.

One of the main reasons for this is it can simply work out cheaper to buy, particularly if a business is considering long-term hire.

It can also be sensible to think beyond the initial project or reason you need a temporary building for and consider the whole business on a short, medium and long-term basis; particularly if it’s multi-sited, nationwide or even global.

If this first building works out, could temporary buildings be incorporated into a company-wide strategy? Are there the same or differing requirements on other sites such as organic growth, development, expansion, improvement programmes? If a broader, longer-term objective in relation to temporary buildings becomes clear, the outright purchase investment is probably more sensible than multiple hire contracts.

This kind of planning is wise as many businesses end up buying a temporary building after a period of hire, which could be months or years. However long it is, it’s still a significant cost that has done little other than creating a ‘try before you buy’ scenario.

If you do choose to hire, one thing to be wary of is suppliers who hire out second-hand buildings that might be a miss-match of components in terms of age and compatibility. This kind of structure might fall short of acceptable structural safety standards and Building Codes, not to mention looking a bit scruffy….

If you hire or buy from HTS you will get a brand-new factory direct, site and project specific building. This might make hiring a more attractive option, but if the building has been fully customised for your business, project and site then theoretically that’s where it belongs, so the purchase investment seems the logically next step.

Re-selling

Purchasing doesn’t have to be a completely binding commitment either. Given the demountable nature of temporary buildings if your business situation changed and you were able to sell the structure on the open-market – or possibly even back to the original supplier – you could have it easily dismantled and removed. Gaining a capital injection back into your business in the process.

Whatever financial decision you decide with regards temporary buildings, it’s wise to think through as many variables as possible in terms of the broader business and longer-term strategies and objectives. Temporary buildings have a habit of embedding themselves into businesses and becoming an indispensable asset to operations and ongoing sustainable success.

If you’re thinking of hiring or buying a temporary building why not use our Building Configurator tool to create your ideal Temporary Building, complete with full design, cost and specification.

HTS INDUSTRIAL offers a complete design and build service to assist you with your next custom temporary or permanent modular clearspan building. From initial concepts through to working drawings, production, shipping and installation, HTS INDUSTRIAL translates your concepts into reality.